We decided to pass on a winter vacation down south this year for several reasons. Not being able to shake The Crud that’s going around is one of them. The Crud lives in the shadow of The Flu. If you escape The Flu, The Crud will pounce on you. Unlike The Flu, The Crud may not become lethal. It just makes you wish you were dead while you’re coughing your lungs up, and it just won’t go away—like certain politicians.

MG came down with it first. He caught it from our grandsons when we spent the Christmas holiday with them in North Carolina. His sinuses were as blocked as a bill trying to pass through a Congressional shutdown.

He was considerate. He slept in a guest bedroom so I wouldn’t catch it from him. I escaped its clutches for three weeks, but it finally caught up to me this past Friday. MG still has it, so we are suffering through it together now.

Aww, isn’t that sweet? If any one of you out there answered yes, you are a seriously romantic sentimentalist. Get help.

We have cornered the market on canned chicken soups. We’ve tried just about every variety. The original Campbell Chicken Noodle Soup, the kind we all ate as kids that doesn’t have any veggies in it, is MG’s favorite. I like the chunky varieties with veggies better. I don’t know what it is about eating chicken noodle soup that makes me feel better when I’m sick. It just does. Chicken soup is not just for the soul. The body likes it too.

We practically bought out the bulk supply of tissues at Costco and went through them at warp speed the way The Enterprise travels through space. In hindsight, I suppose we should have bought Kleenex^® stock so we could get some of our money back.

It was with reluctance that I dug out the dreaded Neti Pot. As expected, MG turned up his nose at using it. Yeah, that was shameless of me. I couldn’t help myself. It was much too tempting, but yielding to that kind of temptation happens to be one of my super powers.

A couple of nights ago, my sinuses began behaving badly, channeling Niagara Falls, so I did make use of the Neti Pot myself. Eww, and I do mean eww, but it helped me to breathe through my nose so I wouldn’t look like the daily catch at a fish market.

Cabin fever has set in with a vengeance. Except for visits to the doctor and to the pharmacy, MG and I haven’t gone out much. I began to feel like a prisoner in my own home. I spent several days in a row in my pajamas curled up on the couch in front of the TV not wanting to do anything but drink hot tea and honey for my sore throat. I avoided watching any political news reports after a while because they made me feel homicidal.

The other night, MG and I decided to watch a movie on Netflix to cheer ourselves up. He insisted on watching The Shawshank Redemption. It’s a great movie, don’t get me wrong, but in my somewhat distraught emotional state, I felt a prison movie might not be the best choice. I mentioned that to MG, but of course he still got his way, the big baby.

I can tell you unequivocally that The Shawshank Redemption did not cheer me up that night—quite the opposite—but it did give me an idea about what to do with a clueless husband who selects a gritty prison movie to watch without taking into consideration that his crud-fighting, emotionally distraught, cabin-feverish wife is a descendant of Sicilians.

I believe you get my drift…

You’ve probably guessed that the snow didn’t bother to hold off at least until after Thanksgiving Day. It was already here. It has been here for a while now, and it doesn’t show any signs of leaving.

The snow was too impatient to wait long enough to arrive on Christmas morning so we’d wake up to a White Christmas, Irving Berlin and Bing Crosby notwithstanding.

Actually, we’re way ahead of the game in Michigan. We usually have a White Halloween.

The heavy snowfalls we experience make Michiganders grateful for four-wheel drive vehicles, snow blowers, whole house generators, lots of insulation, and fireplaces. I know I am. Another item for which I am grateful is the Internet. I did all my Christmas shopping online this year so I wouldn’t have to drive on the snow-covered roads. I even went online and sent e-cards for Christmas so I wouldn’t have to go out in the cold and walk down to the mailbox at the bottom of our snow-covered driveway.

Years ago, when my family and I moved north to Michigan, we arrived in February in the midst of a snowstorm. As a non-native Michigander, it took me a while to acclimate to the winter cold and snow and to learn that thirty-two degrees in winter was considered balmy.

Shortly after arriving, I went shopping for warmer clothing and for snow boots. When I rolled up my jeans to try on a pair of boots, I exposed the thermal underwear covering my calves. The female natives in the store mocked me and thermal shamed me. They informed me that no real Michigander wore thermals if the temperature was above zero. I wondered if that was the Michigan equivalent of not wearing white after Labor Day.

I’m looking forward to MG and I spending Christmas weekend with our younger son and his family. I’m sure the time spent with our wild and wonderful grandchildren will dispel the winter blahs and cabin fever we’ve been experiencing.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

I absolutely adore my golden oak computer desk. It is the anchor corner of my writer’s cave. It has shelves for books, nooks for electronic devices and for a wheeled computer case, slots for music CDs [Mozart, especially, for when I’m plotting], slide out under-desktop shelves for an external keyboard and track pad, drawers for files and office supplies, and a large flat surface on which to set an external monitor and spread notes out—and make a ginormous mess, prominently featuring several tall untidy stacks of papers, each representing a different work in progress. Nirvana. Sheer nirvana.

The multi-function Officejet is also tough to get along without. Its substitute, a portable HP Deskjet 400, has a very small footprint and can fit easily into my wheeled computer case along with my MacBook Pro. It does color printing but not duplex printing; it prints on one side only. It can’t scan. It can’t copy. It can’t fax. A triple threat. On the other hand, I shouldn’t whine because it beats the alternative. A baby printer is better than no printer at all.

For the last three winters, Macho Guy did his valiant best to create a semblance of office space for me in the rentals we inhabited for the two months we spent in Florida. He set up a folding, height adjustable worktable as a makeshift desk in one corner of the living area. We arranged my MacBook Pro, Deskjet, electric pencil sharpener, notepads, office supplies, and my current book-book [thank you, Merline Lovelace] on the makeshift desk in the most efficient layout. At that point, I began missing my ergonomic computer chair, which I left behind in my office back home. Kitchen chairs just don’t cut it when you sit at a computer for several hours at a time. I felt the difference in the two Bs—my butt and my back. Drat. I’m whining again.

When we arrived at our rental cottage this January, a pleasant surprise awaited. The owners replaced some of the furniture in the living area and made one very valuable addition—a desk. It wasn’t large. It wasn’t golden oak. It wasn’t even a computer desk. But it was an actual desk with three drawers and a large enough working surface for me to set out my MacBook Pro and my little baby printer. No more folding, height adjustable worktables for me.

I still have to sit on a regular straight back chair though, but Macho Guy came to the rescue. He found a fabulous seat cushion for me at Brookstone. It has a little cut out in a very strategic spot that provides maximum comfort for one’s gluteus maximus. Trust me, that cushion makes a huge difference. It enables my hind end to handle a straight back chair for the next two months. I’m darn sure I’ll be sitting pretty from now on.